Showing posts with label Battle of Cable Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle of Cable Street. Show all posts

11 May 2025

An Open Letter to the Metropolitan Police’s Racist Anti-Palestinian Commissioner, Mark Rowley

You Have Done Your Best To Ban Demonstrations Against Gaza’s Genocide – Using Jews As Your Moral Alibi – That Makes You Not the Protesters anti-Semitic

Emailed to:  mark.rowley@met.police.uk

Dear Sir Mark Rowley,

You do not know me. I am just one of the thousands who have been wrongfully arrested by your officers.

The Battle of Cable Street

On October 4th 2024, the 88th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when the Met tried to batter their way through 200,000 anti-fascists in order to allow supporters of the British Union of Fascists to march through the Jewish East End, I was arrested at the Swiss Cottage demonstration against Israel’s racist and genocidal Ambassador Tzipi Hotoveli. I was accused of having committed a ‘racially aggravated offence’.

My ‘crime’ was having compared the Israeli state to Nazi Germany. I cited an article in which I compared the Nazi holocaust to the Israeli holocaust.



Tony Greenstein arrested for his speech outside the residence of Israels Ambassador Tzipi Hotoveli

On 13th November I was informed that you would not be charging me. My arrest was thus unlawful. I told your officers that I was disappointed that I could not challenge in court your attack on freedom of speech and your belief that policing political speech is part of the Met’s duties.

I know that people in your position have no sense of irony but arresting Jewish people for anti-Semitism is like awarding Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tony Greenstein Speech in Liverpool 12 January 2025 at Palestine Solidarity Demo

You have made it clear that that the only Jews who count are racists and Zionists. Anti-Zionist and anti-racist Jews are invisible because we refuse to be the moral alibi for the British government’s complicity in the Genocide in Gaza.

The constant theme when banning Palestinian demonstrations is that solidarity with Palestine is inherently anti-Jewish. That’s why on December 7 your officers surrounded the Jewish Bloc in order to ‘protect’ them from other marchers!

You have now abused your powers once again to ban the demonstration against Israel’s Ambassador over a large part of North London. The pretext is that it’s a ‘Jewish’ area despite only 8.5% of Swiss Cottage residents being Jewish. Again the assumption is that Jews support Genocide. If anyone Sir Mark is an anti-Semite it is you.

It is time that you got it through your thick head that not all Jews support Zionism, Israeli Genocide. Historically Jews have been in the forefront of opposition to racism & fascism.

Mark Rowley's Police State in Action - Demonstrations on Palestine are Banned from the Area in Red

Today there is a growing Jewish revolt against Israel’s neo-Nazi politics of ethnic cleansing. People realise that one of the lessons of the Holocaust is opposition to all forms of racism.

Yehuda Elkana, a child survivor of Auschwitz and former President of the Central European University spoke of

a profound existential “Angst” fed by a particular interpretation of the lessons of the holocaust … that we are the eternal victim. In this ancient belief … I see the tragic and paradoxical victory of Hitler. Two nations, metaphorically speaking, emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz: a minority who assert, “this must never happen again,” and a frightened and haunted majority who assert, “this must never happen to us again.”

Instead of fighting the terrorism that the British state created the Police are chasing political dissidents

The Metropolitan Police Used To Be Institutionally Anti-Semitic - Now It Supports Zionism – Nothing Much Has Changed

When anti-Semitism was prevalent in Britain it was also rife in the Met. During the 1930s there were even exchanges visits between the Nazi police and the Met. Today the Met is pro-Zionist. It is a change without a difference.

Anti-Semites have always supported Zionism as a means to get rid of the Jews in their midst. As A B Yehoshua, an Israeli novelist once said ‘Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist.’  (Jewish Chronicle 22.1.82.)

That is why Tommy Robinson declared that he is a Zionist. That is why the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-right Richard Spencer, said he was a White Zionist. Every bigot and racist today loves Israel – from Marine Le Pen to the neo-Nazi AfD in Germany to Donald Trump. You are not alone Sir Mark.

Special Branch report – on a ‘Jew’ driving a car

In We Fight Fascists Daniel Sonabend, wrote about the 43 Group, which was formed by Jewish ex-servicemen in April 1946 to oppose the resurgence of fascist groups, led by Oswald Moseley. The reaction of the Police to them was extremely hostile. Genuine anti-Semitism not today’s false anti-Semitism has never bothered the Met.

Sonabend described the experiences of David Goldstein who was falsely arrested.



Four police officers leapt on him. He received several blows to the face and was knocked to the ground before being dragged to the nearest police car. The police later claimed Goldstein had provoked them by kicking the superintendent in the balls.

Accusing the victims of police violence of assault is something that Black people have a long experience of. Sonabend describes what happened at the police station.

they encountered the man Goldstein had reportedly attacked,... Superintendent Charles Satterthwaite. ‘Fucking Jew bastard’ Satterthwaite shouted at Silver as he repeatedly beat him, while two of his officers held Silver against the wall... Satterthwaite went for his face, which... was left ‘covered in a mass of blood.’




Satterthwaite was described by one Lennie Rolnick as ‘a first class anti-Semite who would have done well at Belsen.’

Anti-fascists were three times as likely to be arrested as fascists. Sonanbend concluded that ‘widespread anti-Semitism in the Metropolitan Police force’ was the explanation for this disparity in arrest rates. Sonanbend quotes Vidal Sassoon:

Two policemen held one of my comrades., Mo Levy, while a sergeant pounded him, beating him everywhere but the face, at the same time calling us ‘dirty Jew bastards’, ‘fucking Yids who Hitler missed’ and ‘sons of foreign whores.’

Sonanbend described the Met as an ‘institutionally anti-Semitic organisation.’ Ring any bells Sir Mark?

as well as being anti-Semitic and anti-communist, the police also harboured pro-fascist elements.’ ‘Many members of the Commercial Street Police Station ‘openly boast about being members of Jeffrey Hamm’s fascist party.

Metropolitan police assault pro Palestine campaigner Wasseem Yousuf

Nothing much has changed except for the victims. Instead of Jews it’s now Black people and Palestinian supporters like Wasseem Yousuf who are the victims of police violence.



Thugs in uniform attacked Wasseem for the ‘offence’ of carrying a Palestine flag and like the East End Jews of 80 years ago was charged with assaulting the police. Habits die hard Sir Mark. Perjury is nothing new to the Police.

Why are the police targeting Waseem Yousaf?

There is a petition here that can be signed demanding that your thugs are suspended Sir Mark but it should not take a petition for you to do your duty.

The Met Have Decided that Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is a Criminal Offence

You and the Met have taken it upon yourselves to decide what is and is not allowed to be said on the streets of London. You have become a political thought police.

You produced a 17 page Advice Sheet ‘Instructions about tackling the hate speech and actions by HAMAS supporters on the marches’. The title is instructive. Very few Palestinian protesters support Hamas. What we support is the right of the Palestinians, including Hamas, to resist  the violent and illegal occupation of Gaza by Israel.

Page16 of this sheet ‘Israeli Government/Nazism Comparisons’ says:

‘A particularly difficult areas is the comparison of either (a) the Israeli Government or the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu with (b) either Nazism or Hitler.’

Why is it so difficult? There is more than enough evidence to prove this. Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset said that Israel needs to "separate the children and women and kill the adults in Gaza, we are being too considerate. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it is moral to starve 2 million people to death. It is a difficulty of your own making.

The sheet speaks of ‘comparisons between the actions of the Israeli Government and the actions of the Nazis (i.e. the holocaust)’. I realise that police officers are not historians. That is why you should keep your nose out of historical disputation – you are not qualified to offer an opinion.

The holocaust began on 22 June 1941 with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. The Nazi regime lasted from 1933-1941, so comparisons between the Nazis and the Israeli government/Zionists aren’t just about the holocaust.

Your advice sheet says that ‘There are also frequently oblique comparisons that relate to "genocide" or the phrase "never again.’ That is correct and the comparisons are not oblique. Israel’ attack on Gaza IS a genocide. The International Court of Justice in January 2024 ruled it was ‘plausible’ that a genocide was taking place. Every single human rights organisation from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch believes that Israel is committing a genocide.

If you find calling Israel’s Genocide problematic then it is clear which side you are on. If Srebenica, with 8,000 dead was a genocide then Gaza with hundreds of thousands dead is certainly a genocide. It may be politically inconvenient for you and fellow war criminal Keir Starmer but that is tough. Any arrest you make as a result are political and unlawful.

The Advice Sheet also said that

These comparisons are particularly offensive as it likens the systematic extermination of over 6 million Jews with the military conduct of Israel in the Middle East.

To whom is it offensive? Jews? Many Jews see the parallels all too clearly. But even if Jews were to take offence, so what? Was Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses banned because it offended Muslims? It is clear where you are coming from.

In Redmond-Bate v DPP Stephen Sedley, a Jewish and later Court of Appeal judge, ruled that“Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.” I realise that you find concepts such as freedom of speech difficult to comprehend. The mindset of the average cop and free speech don’t make comfortable bedfellows.

I am therefore writing to you to demand that this Advice Sheet, especially page 16 on Nazi-Zionist comparisons is withdrawn as the advice in it isn’t worth a copper’s nark.

Over recent months you have displayed an increasing hostility to Palestine marches, starting with the banning of the march starting at the BBC on January 18. In my view the organisers should have ignored your dictats and told you to fuck off.

The Court of Appeal has now ruled that your powers to ban marches are less than you once thought. The last Conservative government was hostile to the idea of freedom of association and gave you enormous powers which you then abused.

However Sir Mark, not even the most reactionary and racist cop is beyond reform. I am therefore going to explain why it is that I said Israel is Hitler’s Bastard Offspring.

The IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism states that ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ could be anti-Semitic. This has been widely criticised by leading lawyers and scholars. It was drawn up by the Zionist American Jewish Congress in order to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It is no surprise that the Met should adopt the IHRA, which isn’t even a definition.

Anti-Semitism is a very simple concept. It is ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews as Jews.’ Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with opposition to Zionism or Israel whereas most anti-Semites love and always have loved Israel and Zionism.

The IHRA ‘definition’ states that it is ‘non-legally binding’. So why is the Met using it as if it had the force of law?

Why the Israeli State is ‘Hitler’s Bastard Offspring’ and Why Nazi-Zionist Comparisons are Legitimate.

1.          When Israel’s war on Gaza began, wanted war criminal Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, called the Palestinians ‘human animals.’ When Heinrich Himmler addressed senior SS Generals in Posnan on October 4 1943 he called all non-Aryans ‘human animals’.

2.          Comparisons between Israel and the Holocaust have been made by numerous holocaust survivors. They are in a better position to form a judgement than you.

3.          When Shlomo Shmelzman, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote a letter to the Israeli press announcing his hunger strike against the 1982 Lebanon War, he stated:

a.            In my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed from the Warsaw Ghetto, through labor camps, to Buchenwald. Today, as a citizen of Israel, I cannot accept the systematic destruction of cities, towns, and refugee camps… I hear too many familiar sounds today…. I hear “dirty Arabs” and I remember “dirty Jews.” I hear about “closed areas” and I remember ghettos and camps. I hear “two-legged beasts” and I remember “Untermenschen.”… Too many things in Israel remind me of too many things from my childhood.

4.          Moshe Zimmerman, a Professor of German History at Tel Aviv University, compared the children of the Hebron settlers to those of the Hitler Youth.

5.          Lawrence Weschler, a contributor to The New Yorker, compared Gaza to Dachau before the Final Solution.

6.          Israeli psychologist Gavriel Solomon wrote that:

a.       The idea of Judenrein (Jew-free zone) or Arabrein is not new. . . . Some might say ‘how can you compare us to Nazis?’ I am not talking about the death camps, but about the year 1935. There were no camps yet, but there were racist laws. And we are heading forward toward these kinds of laws.

7.          Veronika Cohen, 80, a Holocaust survivor who was born in the ghetto in Budapest, said

“I don’t think we can remember our suffering without acknowledging the suffering of Gaza... To me, when I read the stories of their suffering in Gaza, it blends completely into how I feel about the Holocaust.”

8.          In the same article Ruth Vleeschhouwer Falak, 89, who survived the Nazi-occupation of the Netherlands as a child, said she was standing there because

“in the 1930s, if Germans had stood up loudly against the Nazi party, maybe they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did to us. Speaking up is not a choice for me.”

9.          Ilana Drukker Tokotin, 87, who spent her childhood hiding from the Nazis, said that

The saying is never again; that means never again for anybody. That’s really what we’re standing here for”

Stephen Kapos is 5th from the left

10.    More recently Stephen Kapos, a child survivor of the Nazi occupation of Hungary wrote that

a.            ‘Israel’s plan is to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza in order to force as many people as possible to leave. This policy has many differences from Nazi Germany’s plan to destroy Jewish society in Europe – but it also has many similarities. That is why, as a Holocaust survivor, I’ve felt compelled to join various pro-Palestine protests in London.

Recently you interviewed Stephen under caution. In the eyes of you and your officers even holocaust survivors are now criminals. Opposition to genocide is becoming an offence in London’s police state.

11.    Marika Sherwood, a holocaust survivor, academic and anti-racist was barred under the IHRA from giving a talk at Manchester University titled “You’re doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me.” Israel’s war criminal Ambassador Mark Regev had objected to it.


12.    But it’s not only anti-Zionists who make the comparisons between Israel and the Nazis. It is the Hebron settlers who daub ‘Arabs to the gas chambers’ on a cemetery. Or it’s Elad Barashi, a television producer on Israel’s Channel 14 who wrote on Twitter: ‘Good morning, let there be a Shoah (Holocaust) in Gaza.’ In another post, he wrote,

"I can't understand the people here in the State of Israel who don't want to fill Gaza with gas showers... or train cars... and finish this story! Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza."

Sir Mark Rowley - A Very Sick Man

If you think that bombing hospitals and murdering thousands of children is ‘military conduct’ then you are a very sick man Sir Mark Rowley.

13.    You went out of your way in your advice sheet not to call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. You referred instead to Israel’s ‘military conduct’.  If you think that bombing hospitals, murdering thousands of children, torturing prisoners, raping women is ‘military conduct’ then you are a very sick man Sir Mark.

Why this leading Israeli Holocaust scholar says it's a genocide in Gaza | The InnerView


14.    Israeli holocaust historians such as Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, Omar Bartov and Daniel Blatman accept that Israel’s actions in Gaza are genocidal. What expertise do you have? Over 55 scholars in holocaust and genocide studies signed a statement that said the same. Over 800 legal scholars said that Israel may be perpetrating the ‘crime of Genocide’ in Gaza. What expertise do you have? Being a bigot and a racist is not a qualification.


So you see Sir Mark there are plenty of Jews who think Nazi-Zionist comparisons are valid in times of genocide. I don’t expect you to agree but that is what freedom of speech is all about. People having the right to say what they want to say without fear of arrest by thugs in uniform. If people take offense so what? People often find the truth offensive.

I realise that a policeman’s mind is a closed mind. You have chosen to keep company with and take counsel from the Zionist Board of Deputies, a group that represents barely 30% of British Jews. They have every right to their racist views. What they don’t have the right to expect is to have the Met become their enforcer. You don’t have the right to arrest those who disagree with your own anti-Palestinian racism.

Rowley’s response to Louise Casey's Report on Racism, Misogyny in the force

The Metropolitan Police’s Institutional Racism

The Met has been called ‘institutionally racist’ by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and more recently by Baroness Casey’s review. The latter was commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, who fellow officers called ‘the rapist’.

You promised to change the behaviour of your officers but given your own racism that is unlikely. Not only should you withdraw your ill-conceived advice sheet on what is anti-Semitic but you should also resign.

An institutionally racist organisation cannot cleanse itself of the stain of racism whilst it is headed by a racist. In your anti-Palestinian actions and behaviour you have proved that you are as bigoted as your predecessor Cressida Dick.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein

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30 March 2022

Open Letter to John McDonnell - What Purpose Do You Serve When Hauling Up The White Flag Is Your Only Strategy?

 As Miners' Leader Mick McGahey Once Said, ‘They’ll Stop Chasing You When You Stop Running’


John McDonell in Surrender Mode with Andrew Marr – He Totally Accepted the fake ‘Anti-Semitism’ Narrative Whose Purpose was to Destroy Corbyn

Dear John,

On 24th February, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Stop the War Coalition issued a statement calling for an end to the war, whilst addressing the underlying causes of the war, namely NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe. NATO expansion had been contrary to repeated assurances that Bush, Baker, Genscher and others had given to Gorbachev at the time of German unification in 1991.

It was pretty mild stuff and yet 11 members of the Campaign Group who signed the statement, including yourself, were threatened by Starmer with loss of the Whip. Instead of standing up to him you all meekly complied. Not one of you had the courage to defy him.

On March 2 Starmer threatened you and Diane Abbot with the loss of the Whip if you spoke at a Stop the War rally. Again Starmer threatened you with loss of the Whip. Again you complied. Under Starmer’s Stalinist regime free speech has been abolished.

StWC described NATO as an offensive not a defensive alliance referring to ‘its record in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya over the last generation, not to mention the US-British attack on Iraq.’

These are incontestable facts but you didn’t even mount a protest at what had happened. What is the point of your gestures of opposition if at the end of the day you always back down?

The reaction of Starmer was predictable. He was elected as leader on the basis of 10 pledges, number 4 of which promised to ‘promote peace and human rights’.

No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act and put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international peace and justice.

This was of course a lie. In a contest between Johnson and Starmer one would be hard pressed to decide who is the bigger liar. Yet you didn’t see fit to point these, simple facts, out.

NATO’s willingness to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian was an ideal issue on which to make a stand but once again you bottled it. You could for example have pointed out that the United States and Britain have openly armed neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine. You could have asked how this squared with his commitment to rooting out anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. You did none of these things.

The obvious response to someone who makes a Dalek seem an empathetic human being was to tell Starmer to go take a swim in the River Thames. Preferably without a life jacket. But you did none of these things.

You and the Cowardly 10 chose to place a premium on your seats in parliament even though Starmer has made it clear that you are unlikely to be allowed to stand for Labour again.

To put your behaviour in context it is worth looking at what happened during previous witchhunts by the Right and how the Left responded.

In 1939 Sir Stafford Cripps and Aneurin Bevan refused to back down when they supported an anti-fascist united front with the Communist  Party. As a result they were expelled.

Bevan first and then Cripps were readmitted to the Labour Party.  Bevan went on to found the NHS and Cripps, who at one time rivalled Churchill in war-time popularity, became a member of the War Cabinet and in 1947, Chancellor of the Exchequer. As George Orwell wrote:

The outstanding thing about Sir Stafford Cripps, however, has always been his utter unwillingness to compromise his political principles.

I doubt if even your best friend could say that about you John. If there is one thing that marks you out it is your willingness to surrender. No principle is so precious that you won’t give it up.

Do you remember that toe curlingly embarrassing interview with Andrew Marr on Labour ‘anti-Semitism’? Not once did you challenge the assumption that Labour was overrun by anti-Semitism. You simply took as gospel what the supporters of Israeli Apartheid said.

Today we face not only NATO inspired carnage in the Ukraine but the possibility of nuclear conflagration if the US continues find pretexts for war in order to retain military and economic hegemony. That is why it has created the Aukus Pact as part of its pivot to Asia and undeclared war against China. Always of course in the name of ‘human rights’!

Graham Bash, who was recently expelled after 53 years membership, described you as the best Labour MP he had known, which makes me shudder as to the rest of them. You are 71. After 25 years in parliament you will have a good parliamentary pension.  You and Dianne Abbot will not suffer if you are deselected.  Who knows you could even win against Starmer Labour.

However bad Blair was Starmer is even worse. What is it that prevents you and what’s left of the Socialist Campaign Group mounting a political attack on Starmer, who is the Tory enemy from within, and his shadowy backers like Mandelson and Labour Friends of Israel?

Starmer himself is insignificant. A political nonentity. He has less charisma than the average mannequin. There is no lie that he is not willing to tell, nor any promise that he is not prepared to break.

He was a fervent Remainer but now he supports Brexit. He promised to ‘root out’ Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ and then he expelled record numbers of Jews! So much so that if you are a Jew in Labour then you are 5 times more likely to be expelled than non-Jews.

Luke Stanger, a vile anti-Roma racist was welcomed back to the Labour Party by David Evans, Starmer and local MP Peter Kyle

The only true thing Starmer has said since becoming leader is that he is a Zionist ‘without qualification’, i.e. a racist for whom Black Lives Matter was a ‘moment’. Starmer has readmitted to Labour racists like Trevor Philips, for whom Muslims are a nation within a nation and Luke Stanger for whom Roma and Gypsies are ‘a nasty blight on society.’ Through all of this you have kept silent.

If there is any one individual, bar Jon Lansman, who bears responsibility for the defeat of the Corbyn project, it is you. It wasn’t long ago when you were ‘tearing your hair out’ about anti-Semitism. You apologised for non-existent anti-Semitism. You told us that we should take the advice of the Zionist Board of Deputies on anti-Semitism even though the BOD has a proven record of attacking Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists as ‘anti-Semitic’.

Even worse you and Lansman supported the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which was designed precisely in order to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

It was as if you had loaned out your brain. I was the first Jewish person to be expelled from Labour as a consequence of the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. The first person to welcome my expulsion was Starmer. It was clear then that the concern of the Tory press and the Labour Right about ‘anti-Semitism’ was contrived. Yet you and the Campaign Group remained silent.

When Ken Livingstone was suspended instead of defending him you told him that the Jews were a forgiving people!  Perhaps, but Zionists aren’t that forgiving.

Did you ever ask why should those who demonised asylum seekers and Muslims should be so concerned about anti-Semitism? It was New Labour, with Alan Johnson as Home Secretary, who first created the ‘hostile environment’ policy that Theresa May ran with. If Jews were genuinely suffering from anti-Semitism, then the Tories and Labour Right would be the last people to complain.

Did you never ask yourself why The Times, whose editor Geoffrey Dawson forbade all criticism of Hitler’s anti-Semitism in the 1930s, was so concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’?  Or the Daily Mail which led with ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ and employed a neo-Nazi, Katie Hopkins as a columnist, was a cheerleader for Hitler in the 30s?

Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail with friend

When Hitler ‘won’ the unfree elections in March 1933, the Mail wrote that if Hitler used his majority “prudently and peacefully, no one here will shed any tears for the disappearance of German democracy”. Yet we are supposed to believe that the Mail has now repented and it too is now concerned about Labour ‘anti-Semitism’.

What possessed you to praise the Board of Deputies, a body that has never organised a demonstration against genuine anti-Semitism? In October 1936, it advised Jews to stay away from the anti-fascist mobilisation against Moseley’s British Union of Fascists in the East End of London. The Jewish working class, which today does not exist, ignored the BOD. Did it not strike you as strange that their first demonstration against ‘anti-Semitism’ in March 2018 was against Corbyn?  A demonstration which those well known anti-racists Ian Paisley and Norman Tebbit attended?

It was obvious in 2016 that the British Establishment and the US and Israeli states had resolved that someone opposed to NATO and its wars could not be allowed to be the leader of the second major party in their closest European ally. Anti-Semitism was their chosen weapon.

Instead of standing up to the Right and its false anti-Semitism narrative you betrayed the Left and appeased the Right. When Margaret Hodge, whose call for a Whites only housing policy had been praised by the BNP, called Jeremy ‘a fucking anti-Semite’ it was you who opposed any disciplinary action.

This was the same Hodge that demanded that Starmer remove the Whip from Corbyn or she would resign. Is it any wonder, according to Owen Jones and Pogrund/ MacGuire that Corbyn refused to talk to you for many months as a result?

This is the same Hodge who covered up a child abuse scandal in Islington Council when she was leader and who libelled one of the victims. As Matthew Norman wrote With a past like hers, Margaret Hodge might show a bit more humility. Hodge’s reward was being made Children’s Minister by Blair, an act that defied irony yet nonetheless you sought to appease this despicable creature who is now the Jewish Labour Movement’s parliamentary representative.

A different path was always available to you. You could have supported Open Selection of MPs and got rid of Hodge and her detritus. The PLP could have been transformed. Instead you thought you could win over the Ian Austins and John Manns of this world!

It is no surprise therefore that as soon as Starmer barked you and the SCG jumped. The SCG has 35 MPs yet only 11 were even prepared to sign StWC’s statement. As Dylan wrote, you threw it all away.

Today it would be difficult to put a piece of paper between Starmer and Johnson. They are both liars and they are both ‘patriots’ who wrap themselves in the flag.  As Samuel Johnson observed, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

If you had an ounce of courage or principle you would challenge Starmer for the Tory he is. You would appeal over his head to Labour’s membership and start a campaign against this reactionary representative of the Deep State with his persecution of Assange, his protection of Jimmy Saville and his support for extraordinary rendition.

Instead you retreat in sullen silence. Indeed you even attempted to flatter him. ‘Keir’s got this exactly right’ was your response to Starmer’s Covid strategy. But what was Starmer’s strategy? He promised to support Johnson ‘in the national interest’.

By delaying the first lockdown Johnson killed 20,000 people. By decanting the infected into care homes he killed at least 30,000. Yet you praised him.

If you are not going to fight Starmer inside the Labour Party, the principled thing to do would be for you and the SCG to accept that Labour has abandoned even the pretence of socialism. Your one service to socialism would be to help in the formation of a new, socialist party.

 The Labour Right is determined that there will never be a return to the Corbyn era and you seem determined to help them in that.

The only thing that puzzles me is why the Labour Representation Committee still keeps you on as their President. Perhaps its a case of misplaced nostalgia or just wishful thinking.

Fraternally,

Tony Greenstein

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